Prof. Anne Bayefsky: 'Getting rid of Karim Khan shouldn't save ICC' after Qatar scandal

"The Qatari government promised to ‘look after’ embattled International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan in exchange for his indictment of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, according to recordings published by the Wall Street Journal earlier this week.

The latest allegations about Qatar's influence on Khan and the warrants follow a report by the Guardian in November that Qatar paid a London-based firm to discredit the woman who accused Khan of sexual harassment.

Professor Anne Bayefsky, President of Human Rights Voices and Director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, spoke with Arutz Sheva - Israel National News about the latest scandal embroiling the ICC and its Chief Prosecutor.

Prof. Bayefsky began: ‘To explain what is going on requires cutting through a web of deceit, both by Khan/his supporters, and the equally anti-Israel mob that opposes him. There is a massive effort by all these actors to save the arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant, to reject any connection between Khan's request for those warrants and the sexual assault allegations, and to have the ICC emerge unscathed by any dimension of the whole sickening saga.’

‘In reality, there is evidence that points to a connection between Khan's attempt to save himself from the ramifications of gross sexual impropriety and the Israeli arrest warrants he demanded. At the same time, the alleged victim shared Khan's anti-Israel agenda, and the advocates seeking to protect her are anxious to avoid any impact on those warrants,’ she stated. ‘What this means is that the whole sordid episode is currently being cast as 'save poor Khan' versus the #MeToo movement. And neither of these sides wants to connect the dots between the sexual assault allegations and Khan's subsequent warrant request.’

‘The court has been seized with Israel's application to dismiss the warrants, on the basis of the perception of bias, for 5 months. Maybe the court has been hoping Khan would have been removed by now and they could pretend that the arrest warrants were untarnished by his 'unclean hands,'‘ she said.

Addressing the latest revelations, Prof. Bayefsky stated that ‘the suggestion that Qatar is deeply involved as Khan's wingman or personal secret service, if true, brings the Office of the Prosecutor and the ICC (which continues to employ him) into even further disrepute.’

‘But make no mistake, getting rid of Khan should not save the ICC from the enormous implications of this utter fiasco, or validate Khan's tainted moves against Israelis at the highest levels,’ she concluded."